Tuesday, September 27, 2016

September 27, 2016
Peace and Good,
This past week was quite busy. It began with a meeting with provincials and custodes from all over the world. We had a first meeting with half of them in January, and this was the second meeting. Then on Tuesday we went up to Assisi to be with the Pope as he greeted an ecumenical meeting. On Wednesday we went up to Mt. LaVerna where St. Francis received the stigmata, the wounds that Jesus had. Then on Wednesday night we returned to Assisi and were there until Saturday. On Saturday morning we drove down to Rome. On Sunday morning, I went out to our school in the suburbs, the Seraphicum, where I studied as a student. There I gave a conference to the provincials and custodes who are in charge of our jurisdictions in Africa. All throughout the week I preached in Italian and English to all the friars at the meeting. The homily was only about five minutes in each language, but it took all day to prepare for the next day's homily.
I will be heading out to Geneva tomorrow morning and will get back to Rome on Friday afternoon. I have a meeting up in Geneva with the staff of Franciscans International which works as an NGO at the UN office there.
We got to see the Pope quite close this past week. From the friars who saw him when he first arrived in Assisi in the morning, they said he was in good shape. Later in the day, however, he looked and acted very, very tired. He is around 80 years old, and he only has only lung because of a disease from which he suffered many years ago, so no wonder he was tired.
I have finished some books:
White Seed: The Untold Story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke by Paul Clayton
I thought that this was going to be an archaeological study of the settlement in Roanoke which had been settled by colonists sent by Sir Walter Raleigh, but which then disappeared before a relief ship arrived with supplies. Instead this is a reconstruction on a fictional and a little meladramatic level of what the colonists encountered between the time they were dropped ashore and when the relief arrived (but too late). Like many historical fiction accounts, it is not bad, but not really great.
Divine Droplets by WLG Enterprises
The title of this story is from a particular type of Sake that the main character likes to drink before he goes out to kill a young woman. He has just escaped justice because of a police error, and he now feels invincible. The policeman who planted a bit of evidence confronts the lawyer who got this evil but rich man off, and she “accidentally” drops a sketch book in front of him which will certainly convict the man of some murders for which he had not originally been charged.
Daughters of the Springs by Lauren Groff
This is a cute story about the female divers at Wekki Wachi in Florda. It is a hokey old fashioned show of mermaids, but somehow it works. The writer, who is a bit of a feminist, was nevertheless impressed by the beauty of the divers and their movements while underwater. She had arrived expecting to see something that would annoy her, and yet the reaction was the opposite.
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark
This is easily one of the best history books I have ever written. So many historians speak of the causes leading up to World War I as being the fault of one country or another. Clark shows the complexity of the relationships and motivations of various countries in this period. He delves into why a relatively minor event in the Balkans would lead to a world war. He exploded various pet theories of historians with concrete evidence. His work is remarkably well researched, but one never gets the feeling that he is simply throwing out quotations simple to use them. I cannot recommend this book enough.
The Drought by James Born
This is a very well written short story about a police detective on the homicide squad in Florida. The title refers to the idea that there was a period in which there were few murders. The detectives have little to do. Then one of the detectives is called to investigate a police shooting of a civilian. He does his investigation in a methodical, professional manner. He is pressured by the assistant state’s district attorney who wants to blame the policeman for this shooting for political reasons, but he resists this temptation, even if it means he would be transferred out of homicide to a less “attractive” police division.
Have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude